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Saturday, May 30, 2015

The Dennis Hastert Scandal: What's It All About?

Like many of you, I am trying to get my arms around this Dennis Hastert scandal. The former speaker of the house has been indicted for structuring and lying to the FBI. And just what exactly is structuring, you ask?

I first became aware of it in the late 1980s when I was a DEA agent stationed in Pittsburgh. Essentially, every financial transaction carried out in the US over $10,000 must be reported to the IRS by the involved financial institution. It is called a Currency Transaction Report (CTR). That means if you walk into your bank, for example, and withdraw, deposit, or send any amount over $10,000, a CTR must be filled out and sent to the IRS. Not surprisingly, those involved in making transactions involving money connected to crime want to avoid that requirement. That has resulted over the years in persons involved in criminal activity, such as drug trafficking resorting to structuring. That is, they break their monies into several separate amounts under the reporting limits.

When I was in Pittsburgh in the late 1980s, I was involved in a case with the IRS that involved Lebanese heroin smugglers. The IRS had been tipped off that members of this group were driving from one bank to the next sending wire transfers to Lebanon of amounts of $9,500 or thereabouts. Often, they would go to the same bank on successive days. The banks, having been educated about this practice by the IRS, tipped them off. Subsequent surveillance was conducted and the suspects were observed as they made their transactions over a period of several weeks. Eventually, the group was tied to airport heroin seizures in other cities, a wiretap was installed, and a seizure in New York led directly to the group being rounded up and successfully prosecuted in New York (where one heroin seizure had been made).

So now we have Hastert making withdrawals of his own money from banks in amounts under $10,000. The FBI was alerted and when they asked Hastert about it, he lied saying that he didn't trust the banks.

It's also a crime to lie to a federal agent.

What Hastert wanted to conceal apparently was the fact that he was being blackmailed. It appears though not officially confirmed that Hastert was being blackmailed regarding an improper relationship he had with a male student back in his pre-political days when he was a high school wrestling coach in York, Illinois. Assuming that is the case involving the reason for his being blackmailed, (and the person in question was underage) the statute of limitations has surely expired.

So there you have it. Hastert was withdrawing his own money from the bank in "structured" amounts under the $10,000 amount apparently to pay off his blackmailer and avoid any CTR being sent to the IRS. In addition, he lied to the FBI about it. If all that is true, Hastert has committed two crimes. Of course, if the rumors about why he was being blackmailed are true, his reputation will be ruined as well-assuming the person in question was underage.

I just hope the feds didn't have too spend too many man-hours and resources cracking this case. Hastert is no longer in Congress though he is still a person of great influence. There may have originally been concerns about the potential for public corruption, but that is apparently not the case.

Oh, he almost certainly committed criminal offenses. However, I would just about bet the mortgage that a LOT of other folks did something similar and were not prosecuted. Could be legit, could be an attention distractor??

They already had some poster boys in Bob Ney and Duke Cunningham, just to name a couple from not too distant history. I find it interesting that Siarlys' sheriff is a Democrat, which I just found out. I certainly did not have him pegged for one (call me a sterotyper if you will), but he sure seems to be a Democrat I could vote for, based on what I see of him.

Yes elwood, he is a sheriff you could vote for. He runs as a Democrat because that is the way to be elected in Milwaukee County. He was appointed to fill a vacancy by a Republican governor. He wins Democratic primaries by narrow margins, because a fair number of the black population vote for him, and Republicans cross over to vote for him en masse. (A Republican candidate for state legislature, who faced a crowded primary, had several friends tell him, if you make it through the primary I'll vote for you, but in the primary I'm voting for Clarke. Wisconsin has an open primary, but your ballot can only be filled out for the candidates of one party in the primary, you can't split your ticket by voting in some Republican races and some Democratic races).

Is he great? He's a mixed bag. He is tough on thugs, and having a black sheriff who is tough on thugs is helpful. He also has an outsized ego, picks unnecessary fights with the rest of county government, demoralizes his deputies with arbitrary and capricious administration, and speaks at NRA events while Milwaukee cops are being killed with guns purchased by straw buyers at gun shops that are well known as a good source for such things. (Two wounded cops are suing one of the most notorious shops).

But who are Bob New and Duke Cunningham, and how long since they've been in the news?

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Roger Gardner of Radarsite (1936-2009)

About Me

Born 1945 in Los Angeles. Worked from 1998-2016 as adjunct teacher at University of California at Irvine Ext. teaching English as a second language.
Served three years in US Army Military Police at Erlangen, Germany 1966-68.
1970-1973- Criminal Investigator with US Customs
1973-1995 Criminal investigator with Drug Enforcement Administration. Stationed in Los Angeles, Bangkok, Milan, Italy, Pittsburgh and Office of Training, FBI Academy, Quantico, Va. until retirement.
Author of Erlangen-An American's History of a German Town-University Press of America 2005,
The Story of Papiamentu- A Study in Slavery and Language, University Press of America, 2002, and
The Languages of the Former Soviet Republics-Their History and Development, University Press of America, 2000.